


Better Than Any Speech

by spycandy



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Deaf Character, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other, Temporary Hearing Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2018-02-09 23:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2002479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spycandy/pseuds/spycandy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severe hearing loss after the explosion in Episode 2 leaves Athos's future in the musketeers uncertain. Now that they must communicate in other ways, can Aramis and Porthos at last convince him of his importance to them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was: By all accounts, in the second episode when the blast went off Athos'(and Porthos' and Vadim's even) eardrums should have been blown to kingdom come. Maybe they get up and go after Vadim as usual, and then after a while Athos realises to his horror, he can't hear what Aramis is saying to him, or anyone for that matter. Lots of hurt/comfort all around. Perhaps Athos learns to deal with it by reading lips? Or perhaps the hearing loss is only temporary (albeit his hearing wouldn't be as good as it once was)?

Athos sat alone on the wooden bench outside Treville’s office and watched the drizzle of rain falling beyond the overhanging roof. He wasn’t sure where the others had gone since they arrived back at their headquarters, only that they clearly all had urgent things to do elsewhere.

Of course they had. And anyway, he would be poor company in the circumstances.

Even so, he would presumably be called upon to give his own report of events at some point, so he set himself to trying to piece together what had happened since the explosion.

Consciousness had returned suddenly, as he coughed out foul-tasting dust and then inhaled hot smoke, which his lungs liked little better. His head had throbbed and his ears were ringing, a familiar enough sensation from being in the midst of gunfire, but the sight of Porthos and Aramis also staggering back to their feet had been an encouraging one.

He couldn’t remember much of the next few minutes, only the sharp relief of knowing d’Artagnan was alive, but otherwise he must have been running on sheer instinct as they fought their way through the tunnels. It was only as he stood once more in daylight, holding his sword to a dying man, that his dazed mind had caught up with his body and tried to catalogue its hurts.

He remembered Aramis peering at him, looking worried, his lips moving, but no sound coming out. Thinking that perhaps the man’s throat was hoarse from the smoke of the explosion.

It was only then that he had realised. It wasn’t just Aramis’s voice that was absent - he couldn’t hear anything at all other than the shrill ringing. There was no crunch from the muddy shingle under their feet, no normal riverside cacophony.

“I can’t hear you,” he had said, and he couldn’t hear that either. He wasn’t even sure whether he had shouted or whispered it.

Aramis had reached up to cup the side of his face with his palm, which had seemed an oddly tender gesture in such a public place until he pulled the hand back and showed Athos his bloodied fingers. His legs had almost buckled under him at that point, and although he had known there was still much to be done in dealing with Vadim’s mess, he had meekly allowed himself to be guided away from such duties by Porthos’s gentle hand on his back.

Obviously there was also much to be done at the palace, so it wasn’t to be wondered at that Treville had not yet returned. Anyway, his arrival would only herald Athos’s inevitable discharge from royal service. He supposed he would get by on an invalid’s pension, but it wouldn’t be much of a life.

He’d thought he had found himself a second chance, a new life here, but fate clearly knew all too well that he didn’t deserve it.

“Stop assuming the worst.”

The words dropped into his lap on what appeared to be a schoolroom slate, in Aramis’s finest handwriting, neat and even but with grand flourishes wherever the letters allowed. Their author sat down on the bench beside Athos, already scribbling on a second slate.

Athos huffed a wry laugh at his friend’s accurate guess at his state of mind, though he didn’t see any reason for being pointlessly optimistic. There was simply no place for a musketeer who couldn’t hear orders.

“Where did you get these?” he asked.

Aramis added further scribbles before handing over the second slate, which now read, “Can you hear anything at all?” And squeezed underneath in less perfect lettering added, “Borrowed from my neighbour’s children.”

“Just ringing,” said Athos, passing the slate back. “My head’s like a church tower, it’s so loud in here.” Aramis immediately began to write again - apparently regarding deafness as no bar to chit chat. This time Athos watched over his shoulder as the words appeared, rather than wait for him to finish.

“Porthos is finding a doctor. Treville has gone with d’Artagnan to get his name officially cleared.” 

Athos felt a pang of guilt at the realisation that while he had been sitting here bemoaning his friends abandoning him in his hour of woe, they had both been running errands on his behalf. Unaware that he had ever been doubted, however, Aramis waited for Athos to acknowledge having finished reading, then swiped the words away with his sleeve and wrote again. “Reckon we’ll have to help the lad mend fences with his landlord too.”

“That’s true enough.”

Aramis looked up from the slate and fixed him with a long examining look before finally patting him on the shoulder. It was a gesture so uncertain, so absurd and yet so sincere that Athos had to look away for a moment for fear that he would lose his self-control. They had seen each other through wounds many times, of course, but that was something they dealt with with swearing and jokes about needlework and, when necessary, with hands held tight enough to bruise and no word said about it. This was different and bewildering.

He felt Aramis rise from the bench beside him, drawing his attention to the arrival of Porthos, d’Artagnan and Treville in the courtyard below, escorting a stranger towards the stairs. The balding man carrying a large bag and wearing a short buttoned up coat, in a decidedly unFrench style, was presumably the doctor.

The captain gestured for them all to head into his office and the doctor immediately began to unpack several glass items from his bag. Were they magnifying lenses?

Aramis offered the writing slate, but the doctor shook his head and instead directed Athos to sit by means of a forceful shove towards the nearest chair. 

“All I can hear is ringing. Will that stop?”

There was no answer from the doctor, who instead grabbed him by the chin, holding his head still while he used one of the glass instruments to peer into Athos’s right ear. After a moment he moved around to the other side, and this time Athos held still by himself rather than allow further manhandling.

The doctor walked away from him, apparently addressing Treville. He talked with his hands constantly moving, but Athos had no idea what the gestures were supposed to mean. He tried to read the verdict in his friends’ expressions, but all he could tell was that they were listening intently. To what?

At long last, he saw Aramis start writing on his slate again. Damn the man’s painstaking handwriting, why must it take so long?

Eventually he handed it over. “Explosion damaged small parts inside your ears. Doc says they’ll take a month or more to heal. Ringing should lessen in next few days and hearing should come back gradually.”

“It… the deafness, it isn’t permanent?”

The doctor grabbed the slate and scrubbed it clean with a handkerchief, then wrote, “In most cases no. Just keep them clean and dry.”

Treville nudged the doctor out of the way and handed over a piece of paper, the margin of one of the papers on his desk, on which he had written, “Happened to me back in ‘14. Gunfire right next to my left ear. Took a month to fully heal.”

That was not strictly true. Every long-standing musketeer knew you could get away with more muttered asides when standing to Treville’s left. But not _many_ more.

At any rate, he was not yet doomed to an early and silent retirement. The hope was giddying.

**

Eventually, they decamped to the tavern, where Porthos pulled out a pack of cards as soon as they sat down and began to deal out piles of cards in front of each man at the table.

“Deal me out, it isn’t as if I can hear the bidding,” said Athos as he filled his cup up to the brim, fully intending to drown his sorrows.

Porthos gathered the cards back into a pack and began laying them down face up, one on top of another, until the seven of spades followed the seven of hearts, at which point he slapped his hand down on the pile. Athos understood the dumbshow - it was a children’s game but it didn’t require any discussion and men sometimes played it when guard duty called for a silent watch.

By the third round, the game had become distractingly competitive, with a bottle of the landlord’s finest on offer for the winner. A small crowd had even gathered to watch grown men pouncing on matching pairs of cards. It was only as Athos watched Porthos collect his _slightly_ ill-gotten gains that the ringing in his ears became more painful than the usual rowdy hubbub of a loud tavern.

He wasn’t sure what outward sign he had given of his discomfort, but almost immediately, Aramis and Porthos were flanking him, guiding him out of the door into the cool night air, while waving their farewells to the musketeers who remained at the card table.

Despite being a little more sober than was usual by the time he left the tavern, he allowed his companions to lead the way - and was surprised when they arrived at Aramis’s door rather than his own. Before he could question it, he had been nudged inside and then tugged towards the bedroom.

By now the clamour in his head was such that, had he been in his own rooms, he would have demanded they leave him to his misery and sought the fastest route to oblivion that could be found in a bottle. Deprived of that option, he let them guide him to the bed and remove his jacket and boots.

They had fallen into this same bed together several times before, the three of them, but each of those few occasions had been in the immediate aftermath of perilous missions or hard fighting. 

After escaping death by the skin of their teeth they had been wild, elated to be alive and desiring, desperately, to spill something other than blood, to cry out for reasons other than anger or pain, in order to reclaim themselves from the giddy thrill of danger. And after such sinful pleasure, they had been sated enough, at last, to collapse, safe from nightmares in each other’s sleeping company.

If Athos had wondered sometimes whether his friends might not also be able to keep his more regular nightmares at bay in such a manner, he had never found the way to suggest it.

However, whatever Porthos and Aramis had in mind this evening, it was not that. The slates were laid aside, it being almost impossible to read them by the dim candlelight, so Athos allowed himself to be undressed and then chivvied under the covers by two pairs of hands working in easy harmony.

He couldn’t remember being put to bed so gently since being tucked in by his childhood nurse. With his eyes closed, he felt the bed sagging on either side of him, and two warm bodies climbing in under the blankets.

“I don’t understand,” he muttered and the bodies either side of his tensed for a moment. He could feel them exchanging some words over him, the shifting of their shoulders, the vibration of their chests. But the only explanation they could give him was Aramis’s hand squeezing his thigh and Porthos’s lips pressed briefly against his brow.

But maybe they were all the explanation he needed. And maybe he would be willing to endure many days of silence for one night of this.


	2. Chapter 2

Judging by the meagre light from the window, he awoke just before dawn, still snug between his two companions. Normally in such circumstances, whether in this bed or camping out on a mission, at least one of them would be snoring lightly and the comfortable sound would often lull him back to sleep.

Even though he knew full well that it was his own ears at fault, it was unsettling not to be able to hear either one of them breathing at all. An awkward twist to the right allowed him to watch Aramis’s chest rise and fall by the grey early light, but when he rolled over, seeking similar reassurance, he found Porthos was now sleeping on his front, offering no visible sign of life. 

He knew it was absurd, but he had to make certain. He reached his fingers towards Porthos’s face, seeking that puff of air, the proof of life. And managed to poke him in the cheek.

Half-awakened, Porthos batted away the clumsy hand, opened one eye and raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Nothing. It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.”

“You too,” Porthos mouthed, or possibly spoke aloud, the shapes of the words exaggerated so that Athos could read his lips with confidence. And then, much to Athos’s surprise, he ducked his face closer, dropping a light kiss right on the corner of Athos’s mouth, before settling himself back down to sleep.

He didn’t deserve these men, these brothers-in-arms, these more-than-friends. One day they would each find more conventional happiness than this, and he would strive not to begrudge them what he had already ruined for himself. But in the meantime, what he had with them was so much more than he could ever have dreamed of finding when he came to Paris.

The ringing in his ears had not much lessened, but it had changed a little, he thought. Now it sounded like the rush of a waterfall. It was hard to say whether that was an improvement. He wondered whether he could hear anything else. Whether he ever would. 

“In most cases,” the doctor had said. Not all. 

He lay awake as the room gradually brightened, until he was certain that he had missed hearing at least two quarter-hour strikes from the nearest clock tower and the early cries of the market traders setting out their wares.

**

When he awoke again, it was full daylight and Porthos and Aramis were gone. They had left behind one of the slates, on which Aramis’s handwriting informed him that he should join them at the garrison once he was bored of resting, “(we’d tell you to take whole the day off, but we all know that’s not going to happen)”. He had also drawn two stick-musketeers with hats and swords in the corner.

As he stumbled around the room finding his things and getting dressed, he tried clapping his hands and shouting, but could still hear nothing. He remembered having hope the previous day, but in the light of a new day and with no improvement, that seemed ridiculous.

Perhaps this was the penance he had so long looked for. He had thought the same when he faced the firing squad, but this was so much more fitting. He would have to live every day of this punishment, with only the eternal voices of the dead in his head, Thomas’s laughter, Anne’s sweet whisperings, for company. 

In the meantime, he had maybe a month’s grace while they waited to see whether his ears would heal. One month left as a musketeer. Even if he could not fulfil his duty to guard the king, he didn’t intend to waste that lying in bed.

**

As soon as he walked into the yard, he saw d’Artagnan waving at him in greeting, lips moving rapidly.

“I still can’t hear a damn thing d’Artagnan, so I’ve no idea what you’re saying,” he said. The young man looked so crestfallen that Athos assumed the words had been of import and probably planned in advance. He was clearly very keen to make a good impression - and his open admiration of the senior musketeers was all the more flattering given the youngster’s confidence in his own impressive abilities. 

“It’s good to see you back here though. You did good work with Vadim, even if things didn’t go as planned,” said Athos, trying to be kind. “In the absence of conversation, would you care to spar?”

D’Artagnan brightened and reached for his sword with a broad grin.

At first, Athos thought this was just what he needed. Swordplay had always been an escape for him, something he could focus on to the exclusion of all else. And who needed words, when you could let your sword do the talking?

His first poorly-placed feint-parry suggested otherwise however, making him stumble over his own feet as he hadn’t, drunk or sober, in years.

He had never considered before just how much of a role sound played in combat. It wasn’t just the absence of the swish of the blade in the air and the clang of metal on metal, there were subtler sounds that warned of an opponent’s intention, his breath, his footsteps. Indeed, thought Athos, fighting with their hearing muffled might make a very useful exercise for the recruits.

But that wasn’t the main problem, he realised, as d’Artagnan pressed forward and Athos staggered backwards. Despite being well slept, he felt like he was fighting while dog tired or suffering from a heavy cold.

He deflected a somewhat wild swing from his opponent and made to turn the move to his advantage, but as he lunged forward, the world around him suddenly lurched sideways, the buildings tilting improbably onto their sides. His confusion left an easy opening for d’Artagnan to disarm him and for a moment the young man looked delighted at his victory.

That look turned to sudden dismay, just as the shifting yard turned topsy turvy and tipped Athos off his feet entirely, landing on the side of his face in the dirt.

The next thing he knew, Aramis was there and was hauling him back up, looking furious. He appeared to be shouting at someone. 

“It wasn’t d’Artagnan’s fault,” he tried to explain, worried that his overprotective friend was berating their recruit. “The world went the wrong way up.”

That only earned him rolled eyes and an exasperated look, as Aramis attempted to drag him indoors. Moving didn’t seem like the best idea right at that moment. The garrison was still behaving like a ship in a storm. “Where are we going?” Aramis just tugged on his arm again, pulling him into the kitchens and then directing him to a wooden bench, with a stern finger.

A moment later, Aramis returned with a basin and cloth and began scrubbing at his face, where it was no doubt spattered with mud from the wet ground in the yard. Strange, Aramis was not usually so fastidious about a bit of muck.

For the second time in less than a day, Athos found himself comparing Aramis to his childhood nurse, who had always treated washing as a special kind of punishment for small boys. Judging by the gestures he made in between wringing out the muddied cloth and scrubbing at Athos’s beard, he was also still ranting, and as d’Artagnan had not followed them into the kitchen, he could only guess that he was, for some reason, the target of Aramis’s ire.

“What, Aramis? What is it? I can’t tell what you’re saying.” He started to tug the slate out of his jacket and Aramis flung the cloth into the basin, grabbed it and started writing.

“Did all your brains run out of your ears during the night?” he wrote, all decorative lettering abandoned in his fury. “Clean and dry.”

There was no more room, so he held up the slate for a moment to ensure it was read, then swiped it clear. “The doctor said to keep them clean and dry. Not dunk them in mud.”

Athos felt sick to his stomach as he read. He had indeed forgotten the instruction, even if he had hardly intended to disobey quite so badly. His hand went to his ear, feeling the damp hair where Aramis had wiped it clean. What if he had ruined his only chance of healing?

“Oh God,” he groaned. “I didn’t mean to… I don’t know what happened. I’ve never lost balance like that before.”

Aramis looked stricken, his angry brow suddenly clearing to be replaced by eyes wide with horror. He sat down beside Athos and started writing again, keeping the letters small and quick.

“I’m sorry. We should have told you. The doctor also said you might experience some dizziness until your ears heal.”

Something of his doubt must have showed on his face, because Aramis scrubbed the slate clear once again and wrote, “They will heal.” He underlined “will” three times, then wiped it away and in its place wrote, “Forgive me.”

“Humph,” said Athos, but bumped his shoulder against his friend’s. “At least I didn’t have to actually listen to your whole lecture.”

Aramis shoulder-bumped him back, and then stayed pressed close from shoulder to elbow. Athos leaned into him, the touch making it easier to confess his fears.

“What if they don’t heal?”

Aramis rolled his eyes. “Well,” he wrote, his handwriting regaining some of its flourish. “Treville is making a list of tasks for you while you’re off active duty.” Swipe. “Last I saw, it was long enough to last you to retirement and beyond.”

He knew it was meant as a joke, but the unexpected possibility that he could stay here come what may, and be useful, was so contrary to the lonely future he had been imagining that he found himself drawing a shuddering breath and hiding his face in his shaking hands.

A moment later, he was being held, squeezed almost, by strong arms around his shoulders and he could feel Aramis’s lips forming words against his neck.

“Shhh,” he could feel, a warm breath. And then the shape of his own name. “Athos, shhh.” 

**

Captain Treville did indeed have a list and some of the tasks sounded tedious enough that Athos wondered whether it was really a kindness or if he was being flagrantly taken advantage of to get some long overlooked work done. He was still grateful however, and said so. Treville simply shrugged and gestured for him to go and get on with something from the list, so he headed to the armoury to make a start on a detailed inventory and report on the condition of their guns.

At least working alone there was no conversation that he couldn’t hear. He could almost feel like normal - even the loud waterfall in his head faded from notice when concentrating on something else. The job was no less dull than an uneventful guard duty, which he hoped the others were having at court, after the events of the previous day.

As the afternoon went by, he noted the various small faults and wear and tear on the muskets - not everyone applied the same obsessive care and attention to their guns that Aramis did. He carried out the easier repairs himself and withdrew the weapons in need of more expert attention from the racks. There was nothing that would have caused calamity, but everyone would be the safer for the maintenance and that was a little satisfying.

Nevertheless, he was glad when Porthos’s hand on his shoulder alerted him to their return from the palace. He made a note of where he had reached in his labours, so that he could carry on the next day and followed his friend out into the evening gloom, meeting Aramis at the gate.

The trio strolled together through the streets of Paris until they reached the crossroads at which they would generally go their separate ways. Athos turned to head for his own lodgings but found his wrists caught by the men either side of him. Aramis indicated the road towards his rooms with a nod of the head and Porthos smiled in agreement. 

It was too dark for the reliable slates, but the gestures were a clear invitation. There was no insistence - the others had always understood his frequent need for solitude. He had assumed the previous night was just a reaction to the day’s horrors, a one-off to be treasured but not repeated.

“All right,” he said, and they fell into step once more, all heading in the same direction.

**

“I don’t know why you put up with me,” he said, once they had pulled their boots off and were sitting on the bed passing a bottle of wine to and fro.

The others held what appeared to be a whispered conference, hiding their mouths behind their hands, although they must have worked out by now that he had little skill in reading lips. Eventually Aramis reached to grab a slate, from its resting place on top of a nearby wooden trunk. He took his time with the writing, Porthos leaning over his shoulder and giving an approving nod to the finished message.

He handed the slate over so that Athos could hold it close to the candle, by which light he read, “Because we love you.”

He looked up at them. Aramis held out his hand for the slate to write again, but Athos clung to it.

“There’s no chance I’m letting you wipe that away,” he said, after staring at it for a while. Even though he couldn’t hear his own voice, he could feel the way it had tightened with emotion. “You’re going to need a new slate.”

He placed the slate carefully at the side of the bed and then blew out the candle. In the darkness, he proceeded to show the others just how thoroughly he returned their affection.


	3. Chapter 3

There were voices. The actual words were indistinct, as if he was overhearing a conversation in a foreign language, from several rooms distance, and they were still partially drowned out by the unceasing ringing-rushing sound in his ears. However, when he cracked open an eyelid, he could see Porthos and Aramis busy getting dressed right next to the bed and conversing as though they couldn’t possibly disturb his sleep.

He drew a steadying breath, then, in the laziest drawl he could manage said, “Do you mind keeping the noise down? Some of us are trying to sleep.”

It was worth the effort for the way the two men jumped at his interruption, then lit with joy.

“Aaa ooo ee-us A-oh?”

“No, I don’t have a seahorse,” he said, feigning puzzlement.

They laughed. He could hear their laughter and he thought that he had never heard a better sound in all his life. Indeed, his pleasure at the noise was so overwhelming that it drove all levity away.

“I can hear,” he said. “But nothing is clear. Try saying something loud and slow.”

It took some experimentation, but they soon worked out that if they popped their ‘p’s and hissed their ‘s’s and so on, then between the sounds and the facial contortions that went along with them, Athos could make out simple phrases. It was an exhausting process however, and the joke of misunderstanding words for comic effect rapidly wore thin as he struggled over and over to guess what was being said, even when it felt like he was being addressed as an idiot. 

He recalled the many times he had been amused by hard-of-hearing old gentlemen in the tavern or been frustrated by a market trader who had to have an order repeated several times over the hubbub of the street, and felt horribly guilty for them.

“ENOUGH,” said Porthos, placing a hand on his shoulder at last. “WE SHOULD DRESS. WE HAVE DU-TY.”

“Indeed,” said Athos, relieved. His patience with the stilted conversation was wearing thin. “Very welcome though your voices are, I’m afraid they are wearisome to my ears.”

Aramis apparently took this as his cue to switch methods of communication entirely, and planted a firm kiss on Athos’s lips before going to rummage for a clean shirt. They dressed in silence after that, interrupted only by touches, glancingly light but intimate and affectionate nonetheless.

Once dressed, they headed out into the street, where an immediate whirl of loud noise assaulted Athos. Somewhere in that chaotic clamour, there were clopping hooves, a barking dog, the raucous conversation of passers-by, clanging from a nearby clock tower, an infant’s screaming, each one equally demanding and all of them echoing endlessly in his head.

He scrabbled at the latch to let himself back indoors, unable to concentrate on even such a simple action. At last he stood in the hallway once more, back pressed against the wall.

“Well, that was pathetic,” he said with a wince.

“TOO MUCH NOISE?” asked Porthos.

He nodded. The morning’s excitement already seemed premature. If he was not to be left entirely deaf, was he now to be confined to quiet rooms by too much hearing? But Aramis was already bounding towards his closet.

“... IDEA,” was all that Athos heard him say.

**

There was one thing to be said for Aramis’s idea, which was that walking into the garrison wearing a friend’s thickest winter hose wrapped around one’s head as a muffler was embarrassing enough to almost distract Athos from the cacophony of sword training. 

The significance of the makeshift headgear was not lost on Captain Treville, who called all three of them into his office as soon as they arrived. Once indoors, Athos removed the woollens, trying to look as nonchalant as if they were the latest fashion. And, he suspected, failing.

“Are …. ears ...ter or worse? Or ...st cold?”

He left it to Aramis and Porthos to explain about his returning hearing and the disorienting overabundance of sound he had experienced in the street - presumably allowing the captain to assume they had met him at his own door.

“Can. You. Work?” Treville asked.

“The armoury should be quiet enough. I can continue the weapons inventory.”

The next orders were for the others. Athos could only be certain of maybe one word in three but he gathered that they were being sent outside the city and would most likely not be back until after nightfall.

They parted at the bottom of the stairs, with a brief clasp of gloved hands and an almost casual, “See you tomorrow then.”

He worked for several more hours on the guns. If he ever tracked down the musketeer who had put a pistol away as if empty, with ball and powder still inside, that man was in for a world of trouble. Meanwhile he satisfied himself with composing a sharply-worded paragraph for his report to the captain.

He moved on to examining the carefully packaged ammunition stores.

The thick-walled armoury was indeed a pleasantly quiet place to work, which meant he was taken by surprise when the persistent noise that had plagued his ears for the past three days suddenly became even more shrill and unbearably loud.

It had been an annoyance, but now it was truly painful. Agonising. Was this how souls in Hell were tortured? He clasped his hands to his head, but covering his ears was no defence against what was now a piercing whistle coming from inside his own head.

That was how Treville must have found him, curled on the floor with his hands clenched over his ears, oblivious to anything but the noise. Gradually, he became aware of firm hands holding onto his shoulders. He couldn’t hear the sounds coming from his own throat, but he had a horrible feeling that he was _whimpering_ from the pain of it. 

And then…

“It’s stopped,” he said, tentative, for fear that it was only a temporary reprieve. But the noise was indeed gone - not just the horrific sound of the past minutes, but the ringing he had heard ever since the explosion was quieted. 

“Can. You. Hear. Me. Now?”

“Yes. A little better than before, I think. I… Sorry about all that captain, it was…” he broke off, uncertain how to describe it.

“No. Need.” Treville indicated his own left ear. “Remember?”

Athos nodded mutely, still more than a little embarrassed to have been overcome by nothing more than noise for the second time in a day.

**

After handing in his full report on the condition of the regiment’s guns and ammunition, Athos set off for his own rooms, which had now been deserted for several days. He wasn’t worried for his friends, not really, they could look after themselves and were probably more prone to get into trouble while off duty in Paris than they were on official business.

Even so, he found his thoughts straying to them throughout the evening, as his sipped his wine and watched his candle burn down, wondering what they were up to and whether they were yet safely returned.

Hours later, he was woken by an inept, complaining burglar attempting to climb in through his window.

“Ow! Da… ‘t. Why ...d we not ‘ve ..st knocked.”

“No, no, this is far more entertaining,” said Athos, not budging from the bed for some moments, until it was plain that Aramis really wasn’t going to be able to haul himself over the windowsill without some additional help. “And I probably wouldn’t have heard knocking, whereas half of Paris can probably hear you wailing like that.”

Aramis was soon heaved into the room and Athos leaned out of the window bare-chested. 

“Wait down there,” he called down to Porthos, “I’ll let you in.”

Even by the moonlight, as soon as he opened the door he could see that Porthos had taken a nasty blow to the face since he had seen him last. His eye was half-closed and swollen and his lower lip split and crusted with dried blood.

“What happened to you?” he asked as they headed back up the stairs.

It was Aramis who answered, from the bed, having managed to undress and slip beneath the covers in just the few moments Athos had been gone. “He lost a fight with a door. Long story, tell you tomorrow.” Despite his sympathy for his friend’s unheroic injuries, Athos noted with pleasure that he had picked up every word of that.

Aramis patted the bed and Athos slid back in next to him, while Porthos undressed in silence, his bruised face presumably too sore for much speech. The bed was rather smaller than Aramis’s and it took some fidgeting before they were all heaped in a comfortably overlapping pile. 

“Is this going to be a regular thing then?” asked Athos.

Aramis lifted his head from Athos’s chest, so that he could make his words clear enough to be heard.

“As and when,” he said, then snuggled back down, apparently content with this answer.

“When what?” asked Athos. Even when he could hear the words, it seemed, he was frustratingly uncertain what they meant. 

“Whenever needed,” said Porthos, out of the uninjured corner of his mouth.

Athos thought he could live with that. 

**

“Sixteen… seventeen… eig…”

He still would not have been entirely convinced that healing was taking its slow natural course, but for the fact that each day Porthos made him stand outdoors and paced away from him counting strides aloud. Almost every day the highest number he could hear increased, even when the yard was filled with the racket of men training.

Athos even found himself having to shush d’Artagnan, who had easily picked up the habit of addressing him in his loudest, clearest voice and now did not appear inclined to stop. By the end of a month, muttered asides were once again something he could partake in and he and Aramis were soon being chastised over their sharing of wry observations when they were supposed to be standing to attention. The stern ticking off was somewhat undermined by just how pleased Treville looked at the fact that he was having to give it at all.

His balance was fully restored, and was perhaps all the better for not being taken for granted any more. In between his various daily tasks, while the others were busy at the palace, or waiting on the king elsewhere, he exercised, repeating the drills of his childhood fencing master for hours at a time, until he could complete them even with his eyes closed.

At long last, some five weeks after Vadim’s explosion, he was called into Treville’s office, where he found the captain studying some items on a shelf. He cleared his throat to announce his arrival.

“Ah, Athos,” said the captain, back still turned and speaking in a hushed undertone. “If you can hear this, then it is an order to return to your full duties as a musketeer.”

“I shall be very glad to do so,” he said. 

And yet, for all the fear and frustration since the explosion, he would not have unwished this strange interlude and the changes it had wrought in his life. His past losses still loomed often in his thoughts, but now he knew that he loved among the living too. And they returned that with a love so uncomplicated that it remained completely beyond his understanding.

“Good,” said Treville, turning around, papers in hand. “Because, much as I will miss your assistance with the paperwork, I need you to collect and escort a privateer by the name of Emile Bonnaire.”

**Author's Note:**

> As I said on the kinkmeme, I had a ruptured eardrum once (long ago and fully recovered), but only the one, so while I bring some personal perspective to it, I'm sure both at once would be a lot more difficult to cope with.


End file.
